Yi will return to Earth after a short stay on the ISS with Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko. Their trip home on Soyuz TMA-11 will mark the first time that women will outnumber men on a spacecraft.

Volkov and Kononenko will stay on the ISS for approximately six months, forming the Expedition 17 crew with NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman, already on-board.

Robert PearlmanEditor

Posts: 27328From: Houston, TXRegistered: Nov 1999

posted 04-08-2008 06:18 AM

Soyuz TMA-12 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 6:16 a.m. CDT, on its way to the International Space Station with the Expedition 17 crew and the first South Korean spaceflight participant.

Among the VIP guests present for the launch were the world's first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, and the world's first person to spacewalk, Alexei Leonov.

Together, they are expected to touchdown on the steppes of Kazakhstan at 10:37 p.m.

Robert PearlmanEditor

Posts: 27328From: Houston, TXRegistered: Nov 1999

posted 10-23-2008 10:42 PM
Soyuz TMA-12 returned to Earth at 10:37 p.m. CDT on Thursday. Russian cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko landed their spacecraft at its targeted site on the steppes of Kazakhstan after completing 199 days in orbit and 197 days on the station.

U.S. spaceflight participant Richard Garriott spent 12 days in space, 10 on the station before returning on TMA-12. He is the son of former NASA astronaut Owen Garriott.

Garriott and Volkov, who is the son of Russian cosmonaut Alexander Volkov, were the first second-generation space explorers from their respective countries.

Soyuz TMA-12 undocked from the ISS at 7:16 p.m. The deorbit burn to slow and begin its descent toward Earth began at 9:45 p.m.

Search and recovery crews buzzed in on Mi-8 helicopters and extracted Richard Garriott, Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko from the gumdrop-shaped capsule, which landed on its side on the brushy surface under a clear sky.

"What a great ride that was," said Garriott, an American computer game designer who paid some $30 million for a 10-day stay on the space station.

Sitting in an armchair and wrapped in a blue blanket against the near-freezing temperature on the steppe, he smiled broadly.

"This is obviously a pinnacle experience," Garriott said in footage on Russian and NASA TV.

Garriott was greeted by his father Owen Garriott, a retired NASA astronaut who flew on a the U.S. space station Skylab in 1973.

"Hey, Papa-san," said Richard Garriott. The pair shook hands.

"I'm looking forward to some fresh food and to calling my loved ones," said Garriott, 47, who lives in Austin, Texas. He was seen off by his girlfriend and bother, among others, when he rocketed up to the station on another Soyuz craft on Oct. 12.

"I've got my father here, but I've got other family back home I want to get a hold of."

Volkov sat next to Garriott. The son of a cosmonaut, he beat out Garriott as the first human being to follow a parent into space when he flew up to the space station six months ago. Kononenko, who also spent 199 days in space, was the last out of the capsule and could not be seen in the footage.

MSSMember

Posts: 372From: Kolo, PolandRegistered: May 2003

posted 10-24-2008 09:51 AM
Here is one photo of the whole crew after landing made by RIA Novosti, Anton Denisov:

posted 10-24-2008 10:18 AM
No media attention for this "important" event of two astronaut/cosmonaut sons coming back from low earth orbit...

Robert PearlmanEditor

Posts: 27328From: Houston, TXRegistered: Nov 1999

posted 10-24-2008 10:57 AM

quote:Originally posted by Philip:No media attention...

There might have been more attention had the original plan held to have both Alexander Volkov and Owen Garriott present at the landing site. Garriott was there (but was only seen on the TV broadcast briefly) while Volkov remained at the TsUP, talking to his son by satellite phone.

Richard Garriott had predicted that if both fathers were there, "there should be a great photo opp as we herald in the second generation of spaceflight." Unfortunately, that photo opp wasn't to be (or at least was delayed until all parties were back at Star City).